When consumers are more willing to take ad funded mobile games than paying $7 for a title, it’s no wonder publishers are considering this as a serious option moving forward. Digital Chocolate is the latest in a line of publishers to offer up their games on an ad-funded basis. Not all publishers are happy, however, with Glu CEO Ballard criticizing the move:
“Every time we ask the question about pricing (in consumer surveys), we find that price is never the principle barrier for games. They don’t object to paying $7 for a game. … To me, ad-supported games is solving the wrong problem.”
Maybe Glu’s CEO should stop sniffing his own? Nobody reports price as an issue when surveyed. Ask how many consumers would be interested in owning a Ferrari, then ask them how much they would be willing to pay for that privilege, then look at how many actually own one. “Expressions of Interest” are often a vacuuous methodology for gathering sterile research data. How many consumers were willing to pay $1 for MMS 5 years back… yet so few ever materialized.
The challenge with mobile games is not the pricing, but the content. On the whole most games are faithful reproductions of what exists online or on your console. What consumers want is a reinvention of the category and either games that are extensions of their console/online variant to enable them to interact 24-7 whilst away from the main terminal or games designed specifically for the mobile (like dodgeball, scavenger hunts etc).
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